Charon

Minho has been gone for a day and a half already.

Kibum squints as he looks up at the afternoon sun; despite stinging his eyes, it is already fading and, together with it, the chances that Minho will return alive.

Kibum has already searched as far as he dares venture. Fear and self-recrimination vie for dominance in the shattered landscape of his mind. He should never have let Minho go out alone, no matter how small the distance, no matter how brief the period. Safety is an illusion, and they were fools to forget it.

He’s never strayed this far from the base before, but he’s desperate. He can’t spend another night alone. Out here is wilderness, untamed by any human hand. Wild tapioca plants dot the unfamiliar landscape. He takes as many tubers as he can carry; food is hard to come by. Maybe, if he’s lucky, Minho will have returned when he gets home and they can have a good meal.

Something rustles in the underbrush.

Kibum pulls his knife out of its sheath, fingers tight around the handle, and glances up at the sun. It’s still bright. His heart races; if there’s more than one or two of them, this will be the end of him. Maybe this is what happened to Minho.

That thought angers him and he prepares himself to attack.

The leaves rustle again, and then they part. The thing that emerges is human-sized and shaped, but grotesque. Its scalp and neck are red and exposed, the skin having rotted with the infection that turned it from human to monster. Kibum lashes out with his knife before it can reach him. He aims for its neck, but it ducks sideways; the blade catches on its shoulder and it falls to the ground with an inhuman wail, wrenching the knife out of his hand.

Kibum bolts.

Dione

Kibum gets halfway back to base before common sense kicks in. He needs to turn back. One, he needs to get his knife back. Two, he can’t leave that thing alive. He’s never seen one come this far up before and where there is one, others will follow.

The very thought saps the strength from Kibum’s knees.

For Minho, he tells himself. He can’t let that thing wander around, wounded and dangerous, for an unsuspecting Minho to run into. The thought that Minho might have run into it already is quickly stomped into oblivion; he can’t afford to lose hope now.

With his Swiss Army knife, Kibum cuts a switch and sharpens the end into a cruel taper. And then, he goes hunting.

Deimos

The edge of the forest where he ran into thing is now empty. Kibum cautiously approaches, his rudimentary spear raised and ready to strike at the slightest hint of movement.

There are signs of disturbance though. Here and there are bent leaves and trampled plants.

And blood.

That stops Kibum for a moment. He’s never known these things to bleed before. Then again, hidden away in their base, he and Minho haven’t exactly been studying the creatures; perhaps they don’t bleed from their rotten parts, but can bleed when stabbed.

He follows the trail of blood deeper into the forest. The late afternoon air is muggy, oppressive. It’s silent and not, in the strange way that he’s become used to. And then, somewhere on his left, Kibum hears it; the giveaway sound of something larger than a rat moving through the undergrowth.

He hefts his spear, ready to strike, and follows the noise.

A flash of skin.

It must have caught scent of him, because it suddenly starts moving faster, shuffling and swaying in a pale imitation of running. Kibum chases it, closing the gap to ensure that his spear finds its mark, when suddenly he catches a blur of movement approaching from his right.

Something small and brown, moving too fast for him to determine what it is; all he can see is fangs bared as it comes towards him. Animals have been unaffected by the disease so far, but maybe it’s spread?

Kibum swings around, ignoring his prey, and raises his arm to throw his spear at this new threat.

There’s a loud crash behind him. Kibum freezes, trapped between one death and another, but then the thing dives past him and barrels right into the animal. The animal yelps, giving away that it’s a dog, and the two creatures roll to a halt in front of him.

Kibum braces himself, ready to stab the first creature that moves.

But nothing happens. He hears the dog whining, but the creature just wraps itself tighter around it.

And then he sees. Not a raw, rotten scalp, but red hair, dirty and matted. Fresh blood staining what was once a cream and orange jumper. Not one of them, but a human. A boy.

“Yah,” Kibum says, hesitant, not quite believing his eyes.

The body wrapped around the dog uncurls a little.

“Are you… are you human?”

The boy sits up slowly, his arms wrapped around a dog that’s wagging its tail and trying to his face. He looks up at Kibum – at the spear in his hand – from underneath an overgrown fringe, eyes wide and frightened. Then, he slowly nods.

“Yah,” Kibum lets out a heavy breath “can’t you speak? I nearly killed you. Why didn’t you say anything?”

The boy shakes his head.

Kibum feels a rush of shame; it was a throwaway comment, he didn’t mean to pick on the boy’s disability.

“Are you alone?”

The boy nods.

“Really?”

The boy nods again.

Kibum feels like he’s being a gullible idiot to believe him. Humans, if there are any left, are as dangerous as them. He’s watched enough dystopian movies to know that anyone who survives something like this is likely to be a psychopath with a barbed wire bat creepily named after his mother or grandmother or some like that; the sort of psychopath who would think nothing of using a child like this as a pawn.

If that is the case, Kibum should finish what he started earlier.

More than anything, Kibum wishes that Minho were here, so that this decision didn’t rest on his shoulders alone. Kibum glances up at the sky, at the dull orange glow of the setting sun peeking in through the thick canopy, and back down again at the boy sitting at his feet.

“You better come with me. That wound needs to be treated.”

Nyx

The base, as Kibum and Minho call it, is a holiday home tucked away on the edge of the forest. It’s owned by one of Minho’s father’s friends and managed – or was – by two elderly sisters. The town is a good half hour away by car. Kibum had joked to Minho that it was the perfect set-up for a slasher movie and Minho replied that millionaires probably didn’t watch too many horror movies to be aware of such dangers. Those were simpler times.

The sun has all but set by the time Kibum and his guest make it back. The boy is pale and swaying on his feet, bleeding freely from the wound in his shoulder. Kibum’s knife is lost.

As he opens the door, Kibum sends a prayer heavenward that Minho will be there waiting for him.

God, if he exists, does not hear him.

The house is empty, silent. Kibum lets his guest in and jams a heavy wooden chair under the knob; a simple but necessary precaution. They had moved all of the furniture to cover the windows and doors, except the front door, to prevent anything from getting in.

“We’ll clean the wound first,” Kibum says, guiding the boy to the bathroom. There isn’t running water anymore, but there is a tub that they keep filled with water from the pump outside. “Then we can eat something. Okay?”

The boy nods.

Kibum sits him on the floor next to the tub. “You’ll need to take your clothes off.” It sounds wrong even to him, and the boy reacts to the instruction with obvious distress. “I just mean… I’ll have to wash the wound and your clothes will get wet. Plus they’re bloody. I’ve got more clothes, I’ll lend you some of mine after we’re done.”

That calms them both. The boy takes his jumper and jeans off and Kibum’s heart skips a beat at how thin and starved he looks.

“Hey,” Kibum says, sitting next to him. He’s got a dipper full of water and the precious first aid kit that he and Minho have been saving. The boy looks nervous, so Kibum talks to him as he cleans the wound; nonsense chatter about the weather and the many ways he’s learnt to cook tapioca. It’s admirable, how strong the boy is; the wound needs stitches and he’s shivering by the time Kibum is done, but he allows Kibum to work without complaint, shaking his head whenever Kibum asks him whether he wants a break.

Kibum keeps up the chatter as he shreds and boils the tapioca into porridge for dinner. There is a kitchen, but he doesn’t dare use it after dark. Instead, he kindles some embers in the fireplace in the living room and does his cooking there.

If it were just him and Minho, that porridge alone would be dinner. But the boy looks so underfed, and Kibum still feels guilty for stabbing him, so he retrieves a precious can of tuna from the stash under the floorboards. Of the box of 24 he had found in the kitchen when they decided to barricade the place, now only 6 remain. They had been too indulgent with the food in the early days, believing that the infection would be brought under control or, failing that, that they would be rescued.

In the silence of the night, broken only by the faint bubbling of the pot, the sound of the lid being peeled back is loud.

The scent of tuna hits the air and not a moment later, the little dog is dancing around Kibum’s feet, jumping at him, whining and begging. The boy taps the floor; in the dim light of the fire, Kibum can see him grow frustrated when the dog doesn’t obey his command. “It’s fine,” he says “I like dogs. He’s not bothering me.” Whilst this animal looks more like an overgrown rat than a dog, he’s already warmed his way into Kibum’s heart; enough to be granted a few bites of tuna as Kibum empties the can into the porridge.

Kibum serves the boy first. Tapioca and canned tuna is a terrible combination, but who can afford to be picky? Not them. He’s just served himself when he turns to see the boy attacking his bowl as if he’s not eaten for a week. The porridge is still hot and it must burn, but he scoops it up with his fingers and shovels it into his mouth as if someone will take it from him.

The pathetic sight makes Kibum’s heart ache again. Poor thing, he thinks. He’s been feeling so sorry for himself since Minho went missing, but at least he’s had a roof over his head and enough food to eat.

Remembering Minho kills his appetite. Kibum eats a few bites because he has to, and offers the remainder to the boy.

When the boy hesitates, Kibum reassures him. “It’s okay, I’ve already eaten today.” The sight of the boy and his dog eating is oddly satisfying, more so than food.

Io

“What’s your name?”

The boy looks at him curiously, as if asking how he’s meant to answer that question.

Kibum continues with his self-appointed task of combing out the matted strands of his hair. It’s clearly dyed, but only recently, given how his black roots are hardly noticeable. His parents probably allowed him to dye it for the summer break, just like Kibum and Minho’s parents allowed them to spend a week at a holiday home. One decision proved to be a life-saver, and the other decision very nearly proved fatal.

“If you trace the characters on my hand or something, I can make them out.”

The boy takes Kibum’s hand in his and spells out in order: ieung, i, bieup, eu.

“Eve?”

13031. dog, who’s been grooming himself, perks up at the sound of Kibum’s voice. His tail starts wagging, but when the humans don’t show any signs of wanting to play, he quickly loses interest in them.

“Yah, I didn’t ask for the dog’s name, I asked for yours.”

The boy shrugs.

“You don’t know? Or you won’t tell me? What, you’re not a celebrity or something, right? Even then, I don’t think it matters anymore.”

But the boy remains stubbornly uncommunicative. Kibum doesn’t really mind; everyone has their hang-ups. Maybe this kid really hates his name or something.

“Aigoo,” Kibum teases. “Poor thing, you can’t run around without a name. Hyung will name you, don’t worry.”

That makes the boy smile, and oh, what a pretty smile it is. Kibum feels the corners of his lips stretch up in a grin as well, for the first time in so many days.

“Let’s see… Gong Yoo?”

That gets him a huge frown.

“Okay, not Gong Yoo. What about Tom Cruise?”

The boy makes an X with his arms, wincing a little when the movement pulls on his injured shoulder.

Kibum plays for a while, throwing out ridiculous suggestions just to get the boy to react, but after a while he starts thinking of proper names. He can’t keep calling him ‘the boy’ forever.

At first, he thinks of Annie or Matilda, orphans who find a home, and tries to think of a male equivalent, but as he’s doing so, he recalls an anime about a man who ends up adopting a stray raccoon-child. “What about Darwin?”

The boy seems to understand that this suggestion is a genuine one. He thinks on it, waiting until Kibum is done with untangling his hair to give him a thumbs up.

So Darwin he is.

After he’s repaired the boy’s hair as much as he can, Kibum extinguishes the fire and begins preparations for sleeping. In darkness, he lays out the mattress that he and Minho share, covering it with the sheet that has been worn thin by washing. A little moonlight streams into the room through the thin ventilation shafts near the ceiling, so precious in the darkness of Kibum’s fortress.

Darwin climbs on, hesitation waning after all of the care he’s received from Kibum in one evening alone, and looks at him questioningly when he doesn’t.

“I’ll keep watch,” Kibum lies. He doesn’t feel comfortable enough to sleep, not with Minho missing, not when he’s still not certain that this boy is truly alone. “You can sleep first and I’ll wake you when it’s your turn.”

It takes no time at all for Darwin to succumb. His soft breaths punctuate the silence of the night. Eve, ever loyal, curls up by his side.

Finally, Kibum can let his guard down. He sighs, dropping his head on his knees. What is he doing? He’s still pretty much a child himself, how is he supposed to care for this boy? And what about Minho? Is this really how it ends for them?

In the darkness, he cries silently.

Callisto

Morning rolls by gently. The silver moonlight that shone through the ventilation shafts is replaced by pink and pale gold. Kibum never truly appreciated the sunrise before. Between waking up before dawn to get ready for school and sleeping in on weekends, it’s just something he never gave much thought to. He was always more of a night owl anyway, chatting with his friends or watching pointless videos late into the night.

Now, without electricity, his body clock has reverted to a primitive state. He rises and sleeps with the sun.

Kibum felt like he was going mad, but Minho thrived. Silly jock boy, Kibum thinks, remembering how Minho would wake him up cheerfully to get started on their numerous daily chores. Who’s going to wake him up now?

As if on cue, Eve stretches and yawns. Darwin doesn’t stir, not even when the dog wriggles out of his grasp and waddles over to Kibum, wary but with a wagging tail.

“Here boy,” Kibum calls softly, holding his fingers out. Eve sniffs them, butts his head against them and allows Kibum to scratch him behind the ears. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”

To think that these runts survived when an entire town perished. Kibum still can’t quite wrap his head around it.

When the sun is fully out, Kibum unbars the door and goes out. There’s much to do; water to be pumped, to drink and to refill the tub in the bathroom, a vegetable garden to tend to and hopefully, tomatoes to harvest. Minho to search for.

Today, Kibum goes down the hill.

The dirt path that leads up to the house has almost disappeared. Once, the edges were trimmed with military precision, but there are no gardeners to hold the plants back anymore. He follows the disappearing path right down to the turning from the road.

The rock that he and Minho had rolled onto the path is still there. Weeds have sprouted at its base, curling their tender vines around the rock. No one has disturbed it. Perhaps no one ever will.

There are no signs of Minho; no signs of struggle or death. It’s as if he just disappeared off the face of the earth.

Heart heavy, Kibum treks back to base. There is a vegetable garden at the back of the house. When Minho’s uncle had given them the keys, he told them that the old sisters made the best kimchi from their own cabbages and asked them to bring some back for him.

The sisters are long dead, but Kibum thanks them every day. It is thanks to them that he and Minho – and now Darwin and Eve – have more to eat than just tapioca. Their vegetable patch is a thing of beauty. It has tomatoes and plums and watermelon, pumpkins and cabbage and herbs that Kibum can’t even name. There was bok choi too, but those died fairly quickly under Kibum’s inexperienced hands.

As he suspected, there are some ripe tomatoes on the vines. He chooses four to eat today and takes six more to turn into a paste. He can make soup from it or use it to flavour their usual tapioca porridge.

Darwin is wide awake when Kibum returns; he comes running to the door, to Kibum’s bemusement.

“Look,” Kibum says, displaying his haul. “We’ll have these for lunch.”

He expects to have to protect the tomatoes from Darwin’s ravenous appetite, but Darwin’s reaction is something else entirely. He grabs Kibum’s wrist, tugging him inside, and drags the chair to bar the door.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Kibum tries to move the chair away, but Darwin stands between him and the door, spreading his arms and shaking his head desperately. He looks so distressed that Kibum can’t even get angry with him. “What’s wrong?”

Darwin just shakes his head.

Kibum takes in his stance, the way he blocks the door, and puts two and two together. “You don’t want me to go out?”

That gets him a nod.

“Because those… things out there?”

Another nod.

“Did you come up from the town?”

Darwin nods again, his face tight with misery. His reaction is an entirely logical one. Having ventured down once with Minho, in the early days, Kibum saw things that still haunt him to this day. That was the one and only time they’ve been down the hill; that was the day they decided to roll a boulder across the road leading up to the house.

“It’s okay,” Kibum says softly. “It’s safe up here.” Even as he says it, it feels like he’s tempting fate, but he keeps his own insecurities hidden for Darwin’s sake. “I promise, you’re safe. Nothing comes up here, and certainly not in the daytime. I just patrolled the area.”

It’s obvious that Darwin doesn’t quite believe him.

“Look, the kitchen is just behind here.” Kibum points towards the east end of the house; there used to be a door between the kitchen and living room, but they moved a huge cupboard across it. Now the kitchen is only accessible from the outside. “I just need to process these tomatoes. You can stay inside here. You should be resting, actually.”

Darwin shakes his head. Kibum looks at his shoulder. He’s wrapped it in a meagre strip of gauze and it’s dotted with dried blood. At least something is working out.

“Do you want to come with me?”

And that’s how he gets a bodyguard. He gives Darwin his Swiss Army knife and lets him ‘stand guard’ as he makes quick work of the six tomatoes. Without refrigeration, nothing lasts long; they’ll have tomatoes for both lunch and dinner today.

“So, how old are you?”

Darwin holds up two hands, all five fingers outstretched. Fifteen, to Kibum’s surprise. He looks no more than twelve. “Ah, you’re ten?” he says, just to tease.

Darwin stomps his foot.

“I’m your hyung,” Kibum continues, stating the obvious. “You can call me Key-hyung if you want, like, in your head. Some of my friends call me Key.” His American friends, his water-skiing buddies who can’t quite wrap their tongues around Kibum. He wonders whether they know about the situation in Korea, whether they thought of him then, whether they will recall memories of him in the future. Was it just a year ago that he went water-skiing with them? Whenever it was, it never crossed his mind that it would be the last time.

Darwin nudges him lightly, and Kibum realises that he’s daydreaming.

The tomato paste is ready. Using the tiniest shakes of pepper and salt from the half-full mills left behind by the sisters, Kibum flavours the paste. With herbs from the garden, he can afford to be a little more generous. As he shreds various leaves and works them into the paste, Darwin watches curiously.

“I’m going to make soup with this tonight,” he explains. “Sounds good, right?”

Darwin nods in agreement. Given the way he attacked the tuna and tapioca concoction Kibum made last night, it’s hardly a ringing endorsement, but one that pleases Kibum nonetheless.

When he’s done, Kibum washes the four tomatoes he set aside earlier and fills two bowls with water; the latter, he hands to Darwin. “Come on,” he says, leading Darwin out of the kitchen to the small patio at the back. It’s a small, roofless space behind the kitchen bordered by high walls. The sisters had used it as a wet kitchen.

The ground is tiled, but grass is slowly growing in the cracks. Kibum sits, and Darwin carefully does too.

“Look.” Kibum tilts his head at the sky, at the sun shining down on them and the grey clouds drifting across the vast expanse of blue. It’ll probably rain soon, but now, the air is nice and cool. Somewhere in the distance, insects chirp.

Darwin looks up for a long time, even after Kibum’s handed him his tomatoes, and then he turns to look at Kibum. There’s something in his eyes, something sad, and Kibum reaches out to pat his cheek gently. He feels it too; this insatiable longing, this aching loneliness.

Ganymede

It scares Kibum a little, how quickly he’s become attached to Darwin and Eve. He realises this on the second night as he stays up watching over them. Darwin has been somewhat feverish since evening – hardly surprising considering the seriousness of the wound and how much dirt it must have been exposed to in the forest – and when he becomes restless in his sleep, Kibum is overtaken by the urge to his hair and soothe him.

It’s as if the universe took Minho away and gave him Darwin and Eve as compensation.

As he’s lost in thought, Darwin wakes up, slightly startled. Maybe he was having a nightmare. Maybe he’s still not used to this place.

“Hey, I’m here,” Kibum says, and feels stupid immediately after. It’s not like he’s the boy’s mother or something, that his mere presence is something Darwin is supposed to feel comforted by.

But somehow, that’s what happens. Darwin perks up at the sound of his voice and reaches out blindly, patting Kibum’s face with his tiny hand.

Then, to Kibum’s surprise, he sits up and points at himself. Kibum doesn’t quite understand what he’s trying to say until he remembers the lie he told about keeping watch.

“Ah, it’s okay,” he says. It’s not, though. He needs to sleep. And all of a sudden, he feels the strain of the past few days weighing on him. He’s been running on fumes thanks to the combined stress of losing Minho and getting used to Darwin, but his body has reached the end of its endurance. Darwin starts to get up, but Kibum stops him. “No, you don’t have to keep watch. We can both sleep. Really.”

He climbs on the mattress beside Darwin, leaving a gap between them. The mattress feels like heaven to his tired limbs; it’s as if every muscle in his body is singing him a symphony of thanks. What a marvellous thing a bed is, what joy it is to surrender one’s body to sleep.

Kibum’s not quite in dreamland yet when he senses movement next to him. It's Darwin, shuffling closer and closer to him until the length of his back is pressed against Kibum’s side.

Sweet Darwin, Kibum thinks, humming a comforting melody to himself as he falls asleep.

XXXXX

hi everyone!

this is part one of a two-parter. enjoy!

and to my dearest friend, happy birthday!